


Rituals

by TwoCatsTailoring



Series: A Quarter Hour [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Slow Burn, listen they are both just stupid and i love them, lunyx week 2017, unspoken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 11:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12480956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring
Summary: Hi hello and welcome to @lunyxweek. This is all fluff pretty much and falls in line with my personal headcanons for a big old fix it fic where (mostly) everyone lives! The prompt for day two was Objects That Characterize Them and one of the suggestions was braids. So I went with that. Enjoy Nyx being slightly confused about how he got to this point and Luna being just a wee bit smug but doing a great job of not showing it.





	Rituals

Nyx hummed a Galahdan folk song as he brushed Luna’s hair, longer now than it had been when they’d set out on this trip, leaving Insomnia in ruins behind them. At the time, of course, he didn’t realize that her hair had been as short as it was and it had been two weeks into their trip, right after she’d met with Ramuh, that he’d seen it down for the first time. The braid he’d taken to be just elaborately wrapped around her head was actually just hiding how short it was.

* * *

A clever trick he’d appreciated, having thought of himself as a bit of an expert on the art of braids. After all, they were an intrinsic part of Galahd’s culture. Women got to wear their braids their whole lives. They didn’t get much choice about it really, because for a Galahdan woman to cut her hair was seen as an act of shame or degradation, so the braids were utilitarian. But men had to earn their braids. How varied, but the only person who could bestow a braid on a man was a woman.

Okay, granted, it was a really old, really outdated tradition that next to nobody paid any attention to anymore. And if he was being honest with himself, it was one that he wasn’t sure why he was hanging on to either. The only Galahdan woman he knew at all was Crowe and she’d never bothered with a braid in her life, much less bothered herself about his or Libertus’s.

But still, he held on to his. He only took them out about once a month to trim the ends and tighten them up. They served as reminders of the things he had done, the things he had lost. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want ot part with them.

But when Luna’s had come down that first time, after Ramuh’s storm whipped her hair around her head and tugged the ends free, she had been exhausted. Not from the storm but from the covenant. He’d seen it before, with Titan, but this time? This time they had no hope of cover, no chance to get away so that she could rest. The Nifs were right at the entrance of the crag where she’d met the Fulgarian and there was no way past until Noctis and his retinue created the distraction they desperately needed.

But what he remembered best of that day was not the panicked rush of the pitched battle, but the way her hair slowly worked it’s way loose with every hard-fought step that she took forward. How by the time they were past danger and away, it was in her eyes, fluffing up in the humidity of the evaporating rains, and a tangled mess. He remembered working the tangles out that evening at the caravan that night while she fell asleep with her head on his thigh better than he remembered his own exhaustion.

And he remembered the next morning offering to re-braid her hair for her, if she wanted him too and her accepting the offer better than he remembered the slice on his arm that scarred up within a few minutes with one of Noctis’s foul potions.

He’d done it every night since, no matter where they had been. Yes, he’d taken a good bit of teasing for it from King Noctis’s shield but that had stopped the night that Lunafreya turned the tables on him, parking him on the ground at her feet and picking, pulling, and brushing his braids free before putting them back in - a little tighter and with his beads in different places than he usually put them.

Outside of explaining the significance of them, he hadn’t said a word about it other than thanks. That’s when he knew he had it bad. And that’s when Libertus and Crowe knew too, and they weren’t so quiet about it. He hadn’t been ready to admit it then and he wasn’t ready to admit it now either. Well. Not to anyone but himself and maybe Luna if she pressed. But she never did. 

And so now she relaxed against his thigh again, this time in a fancy Altissian boudior that the First Secretary had offered up as a sort of posh prison cell until tomorrow when she would forge the next covenant, this time with the King on-site and ready to do whatever the grouchy patron goddess of this uppity city wanted.

“Hey,” he gave her a nudge when he noticed her eyes closing in the long mirrors lining the far wall of the room. “Don’t go napping on me. I’m next, remember.”

“You have to shower first. It won’t do to meet Leviathan all grubby,” she replied with a dozy smile.

He hummed another bar and finished off the ends of her hair, tucking the bands under and out of sight. “I thought you liked my filth.”

“I do,” she admitted readily, shifting to look up at him. “But I do not like your dirt.” She pushed herself to her feet, and stood over him, rolling the tiny bands out of his hair and tugging at the tangled plaits. She collected the beads in her hand as they fell, and touched her lips to his when she was done.

“You could join me,” he suggested, tugging gently on her hips.

“But then you would have to redo my hair and I would be late getting to bed,” she pointed out.

Nyx’s brows knit together, “It doesn’t take that long, does it?”

“No, but the shower would.”

He sighed dramatically and heaved himself to his feet. “I suppose you’re right. Don’t fall asleep on me, Princess.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him.

***

The next night, as she lay, battered and exhausted but eyes blazing with triumph, she beckoned him close, tugging him down until he was on his knees at her bedside and added another braid to his hair.


End file.
